Jim Webb's Response: Con

OnPoint:

The Populist Myth

Vincent Carroll

Sen. James Webb is the toast of Democrats and their allies this week for his impressive response to the State of the Union speech - impressive in terms of rhetoric and delivery, if not always content.

Webb was eloquent in denouncing Bush's policy in Iraq, although his perspective is now the distilled consensus of most Democrats and many other Americans. More curious was his take on the economy, which amounted to another version of presidential candidate John Edwards' "two Americas" theme.

Webb's America is a portrait from Upton Sinclair - a place with a fantastically wealthy overclass lording it over the struggling masses, who are steadily ground down to despair. The middle class, "our historic backbone and our best hope for a strong society in the future, is losing its place at the table," Webb maintained, while promising to address the "economic imbalance in our country."

Factually, the idea of a vanishing middle class is rubbish - populist folklore and little more. By any reasonable standard, most Americans are easily better off than they were 30 years ago - and the economy continues to hum. Yes, there is a fantastically wealthy elite - not just in corporate board rooms but in entertainment, sports, the media, and several other nooks of the economy - but they are not cashing their checks at the expense of the rest of us.

For the sake of argument, though, let's say Webb is right. Let's say the middle class is endangered, as he claims, by globalization - by upstart Chinese, Indians and greedy capitalists. What is to be done about it?

At this point even huge Webb fans such as Newsweek's Jonathan Alter detect a flaw in the angry posturing. "The problem with the populist theme," Alter admits, "is that Democrats have no real remedies for the effects of globalization on the middle class."

But this is not just a "problem" for liberal populism. It's the Achilles' heel.